Staff Data Engineer in Cambridge, Massachusetts at Cartwheel

Join Cartwheel to help tackle the student mental health crisis!
Cartwheel is an early-stage company building a new kind of mental health program for kids that puts schools at the center. We see our role as supporting school staff who see kids every single day. Instead of going around them, we collaborate with them. This means:

• Earlier intervention
• Higher student and family engagement in care
• Better coordination among the trusted adults in a student’s life

Kids shouldn't just aspire to get out of bed and drag themselves to class. They should be able to experience joy. They deserve to envision and build a life they’re excited to live. If you join Cartwheel, you’ll help make this vision a reality for millions of students across the country. We’re backed by top investors including A Street Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Reach Capital, General Catalyst, BoxGroup, and Able Partners, and we're looking for mission-driven teammates to join our team.
ABOUT THE ROLEAs a Staff Data Engineer at Cartwheel you have the unique opportunity to design and implement a modern approach to how hardware and software are managed in a hypergrowth company. This role is particularly exciting because you’ll have the opportunity to build key integrations and orchestration architecture from the ground up. In this role, you will work in a team of 4 - 5 people that support the data needs of a fast growing organization. At Cartwheel, we fundamentally believe that technology is a critical part of delivering optimal mental healthcare to the student population we serve.
Role type: W2, Full-Time, Salaried positionSalary range: $160,000 - $200,000 cash compensation plus competitive equity packageLocation: Remote, based in the United StatesStart date: September 2026
WHAT YOU'LL DOTechnical Leadership & Architecture

• Lead and collaborate on technical design and architecture decisions within your team's domain
• Drive technical decision-making by evaluating trade-offs, considering long-term maintainability, and communicating recommendations clearly to stakeholders
• Break down complex, high-level product and technical goals into actionable, well-scoped work
• Contribute to technical standards and architectural patterns that will scale with the organization's growth

Data Development & Delivery

• Deliver high-quality, maintainable, and well-tested code across systems.
• Own and deliver large projects end-to-end, from initial planning through production deployment and monitoring
• Participate in code reviews, providing constructive feedback that elevates code quality and knowledge sharing across the team

Data Engineering Excellence & Process

• Help establish and continuously improve data engineering best practices, development tooling, and team processes
• Champion data quality by implementing testing strategies, monitoring solutions, and governance practices that ensure system reliability
• Contribute to technical debt management by identifying areas for improvement and proposing pragmatic solutions that balance short-term needs with long-term sustainability
• Collaborate on defining meaningful metrics to track system health.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Cultivate strong collaborative relationships with product, design, and business stakeholders to ensure seamless project execution.
• Communicate technical concepts effectively to non-technical stakeholders, ensuring alignment between engineering capabilities and business objectives
• Navigate complex dependencies and requirements to deliver solutions that meet both technical and business specifications.

WHO YOU AREMust have...

• Passion for our mission to tackle the youth mental health crisis and improve outcomes for students and families
• 8+ years of professional data engineering experience with a demonstrated track record of delivering high-quality, scalable solutions
• Experience with our technology stack or eagerness to learn: Google Cloud Platform, dbt, Fivetran
• Problem solving skills with strong analytical and debugging skills and ability to tackle complex technical challenges systematically
• Quality focus with commitment to writing well-tested, maintainable code that follows established patterns and best practices
• Ownership mentality with demonstrated ability to take projects from conception to completion with minimal oversight
• Product-oriented mindset — you think deeply about how your technical work supports user needs and business outcomes
• System design experience that showcases an understanding of data modeling, API design, and scalable system patterns
• Communication abilities to collaboratively explain technical concepts to diverse audiences

Extra credit...

• Healthcare, mental health, or education technology experience with understanding of regulatory requirements and user sensitivity
• Early-stage startup experience with ability to work effectively in fast-paced, evolving environments
• Technical mentorship experience with a track record of helping other engineers grow their skills
• Experience with substantial migrations. You’ll help lead migration of our data orchestration tooling from Dataform to dbt.

Please apply even if you don't meet all of the criteria. If your past experience doesn't perfectly match the job description, but you bring other relevant experience or skills, we'd still love to hear from you. You may be a great fit!
WHY YOU’LL LOVE CARTWHEELOur hope is that Cartwheel will be your best career decision! In addition to tackling one of the biggest challenges of our time, at a company well-positioned to do so, you'll have:

• Mission-oriented and inclusive colleagues who will go to bat for you
• Competitive compensation
• Generous PPO medical, vision, and dental/ortho coverage
• Life Insurance
• Generous paid time off, including company closure from Christmas-New Years (12/25-1/1)
• Paid holidays and sick leave
• Paid parental leave
• 401K with employer match
• Meaningful equity ownership stake in Cartwheel
• Flexible and remote role with regular in-person retreats
• Annual learning stipend
• Laptop

CompensationThe base pay range for this role is $160,000 – $200,000 per year.
Cartwheel is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We embrace diverse backgrounds and perspectives and an inclusive work environment. We're committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, or veteran status.
We participate in E-Verify. Please be prepared to provide acceptable documentation to verify your identity and work authorization
Cartwheel uses AI-assisted tools to support our hiring process. This may include tools that help organize and surface applications for recruiter review, AI-powered candidate communications and scheduling, interview recording and documentation, and an AI chat tool available to candidates during the process. All hiring decisions are made by Cartwheel recruiters and hiring managers. No candidate is selected or eliminated from consideration solely by an automated system. All hiring decisions are made by humans. If you have questions about how AI is used in our process or would like to request an alternative review method, please contact talent@cartwheelcare.org
Note: Please do not contact our Care, Provider, or Patient Services lines regarding job postings or application status. These teams support our patients and families and are not involved in the hiring process. For all recruitment-related questions, please email talent@cartwheelcare.org.